"Returning Curios" Memento (I)

"Returning Curios" Memento (I) is a Quest Item obtained during the Event World Quest Returning Curios in Secret Summer Paradise.

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Note in a Tattered Bag

To the traveler who discovers this treasure, if you are reading this text now, you must have become one of Miss Idyia's most esteemed guests.
The bag you find within the treasure chest is an old ration bag of mine. It accompanied me over mountains and hills and across vast, empty deserts, sustaining me for several decades.
Please allow me to use it to pay you a warrior's tribute, as well as to give you my best wishes.

I was once an ordinary mercenary who chose to live and fight in solitude. My reason for becoming a sellsword was simple: I wished to exact revenge on the bandits that terrorized the land.
When I was still very young, my family's caravan fell to a bandit attack. My parents, who rode at the head of the caravan, never returned.
I started treading this path to eradicate violence and greed. Swearing to eliminate the bandits to the last man, I set out to eliminate all the suffering they could cause. My methods were so extreme that even other mercenary groups could not understand my doings.

All things were as they should be. Eventually, one day, there would be no bandits, or there would be no me.
But in a twist of fate, one day, I happened to track a group of bandits to their stronghold — an easy task, considering my experience.
But this time, I recognized someone among this group of bandits. Many years ago, I had once saved a youth who had lost his parents to the bandits. Though I believed that he'd come to despise the bandits even more than me, I somehow found him in cahoots with them.
His hair unkempt and his face filled with relief at being recognized, he knelt before me and begged for mercy, recounting all the horrors he'd seen.
And even as I stood there, shocked and flabbergasted, he had stabbed me with a weapon, before melting away into the quiet night.
Had Miss Idyia not rescued me, I'd have perhaps become yet another dry skeleton in these sands.

Was there any meaning to the life I had led? Why would a victim of banditry go on to embrace their way of life?
Deep within the Mirage, a youth shared their story against the flickering fire, their eyebrows knitted in a frown and their eyes full of tears. The lack of dignity, the agony of exile, and the loneliness in living all on one's own... Had I not harbored a burning hatred or inherited a small amount of family wealth, I would have likely become just like them.
"If the lid won't work, why don't we try our luck with the bottom?" Miss Idyia's words as she struggled in vain to open a can finally allowed me to piece my thoughts together.
There are some evils in the world that can only be treated by removing their root causes. I know better than anyone the experiences that would drive someone to become a bandit. If I wished to stop them from going astray... I could begin by doing what I can to improve their circumstances.
I reckon it'll be a different kind of struggle from beating someone in a fight. It's far less direct, far more difficult, and requires far more thinking, but I believe it'd also benefit those in need far more.
Anyway, all that is to say I probably won't need this warrior's ration bag anymore.
I will leave it here as a testament to my determination as I set off on my new journey.

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